Eye of the Storm Lore and Them [An analysis of the new beta's lore and the new information on Them]

[Scypham]

MY THEORIES ARE IN SHAMBLES. But in all seriousness hi! You know what I'm here for and I know what you're here for. We're gonna look at the implication of the new lore added in this update and based on what I've seen, I can tell you that it's a doozy.

Now first thing's first, you access the new content by socketing all 3 Celestial Stations (the Altar, Tribute, and Sanctum) near to each other and once you do that there's a Mysterious Energy that appears in the middle of them.

 

Spoiler

This starts a chain of events, the most notable one being the new moonstorm event that happens. Randomly on your mainland you'll encounter a new storm event which is essentially a hurricane ravaging the land, causing lightning to strike and leave infused moonglass in its place. Not only that but every night until the event is over, it will be a full moon and insanity will be replaced by lunacy on the surface. The three celestial stations (the Sanctum, Tribute and Altar) all have a very distinct sound when they're active, almost like radio static when you're trying to find a frequency, or a Geiger meter when it detects radiation. I'm of the belief that these stations channel the moon's energy and by placing them all close together you channel an immense amount of it into the constant, which allows its to power to affect it greatly.

Next, while exploring the moonstorm's area you'll encounter a face. A very familiar face...
 

Spoiler

It's none other than Robert Wagstaff himself! The old inventory and central character to the story's finally made himself known, although he's not quite there. While it is most likely him, he's using a projection of himself to investigate the moonstorm. This is similar to his character in Don't Starve (the singleplayer game) where he has a projection effect on himself and a unique tag called 'outofworldprojected'. It should be noted that we see his actual body go into the constant in Winona's cinematic, so it seems likely that the real Wagstaff is somwhere safe in the constant while he projects himself and his tools to do his work while not risking his life. He gives us two blueprints, one of which is for an 'Incomplete Experiment' and asks for our assistance. We follow him and eventually he stumbles upon what he's looking for and asks for us to help him with containing it. After fighting off flocks of mutated crows and birds and finding his very obscure tools for him, he finishes his work and allows us to take the 'Restrainted Static' and the moonstorm ends, with another starting elsewhere. 

While his intentions for doing all of this are unclear, it appears he sealed away the source of the storm and intends for us to use it, as the Incomplete Experiment requires you to. 

Spoiler

Remember this? This is the experiment! You can construct it where the Mysterious Energy is and it gains the name of 'Lunar Siphonator' and you have to build it in 3 stages, with the final stage needing the Celestial Orb and all using the 'static' wagstaff contains which would be the power of the moonstorms, energy infused moonglass and physical energy from the storms called 'Moongleams'. Once you complete it, the Celestial Champion appears.

 

Spoiler

This behemoth uses all 3 celestial stations for its forms, with it using the Sanctum, then the Altar, then the Crown respectively. Once you defeat it for a third time, Wagstaff shows up and steals the source of its energy, leaving it inactive and letting us get all the moon glass and moon rocks from it as well as the Enlightened Crown. The crown is said to whisper to the survivors and interestingly for Wendy, it makes it harder for Abigail to be seen.

 

Spoiler

"When I wear it, i-it's harder to see Abigail..."
"It's a pretty handy headpiece, could do without the whisperin' though."
"It tells me the most delicious secrets, hyuyu!"

Given that Abigail's flower seems to use shadow magic to bind Abigail to it (given the crafting recipe requiring nightmare fuel, take this with a grain of salt though as obviously Abigail's flower isn't craftable in canon most likely. It's simply for gameplay mechanics), it would appear that the crown enhances us and is powered by celestial magic and since it weakens shadow magic around it. 

As for the Champion themselves, Wortox and Wickerbottom both imply that the Moon sent it down as it wasn't happy with us siphoning the magic from the Mysterious Energy and the Celestial Orb.
 

Spoiler

Wickerbottom = "Our activities seem to have triggered a defense mechanism of sorts.",
Wortox = "Hyuyuyu, I don't think they'll like that..."

Furthermore, its prefab name is 'AlterChampion'. Sound familiar? In my Forgotten Knowledge lore post I mentioned how Maxwell kept seeing a name in the Lunarune Glyphs and it was surmised to be 'Alter' by him. 'Alter' likely being the name of the lunar entity and the Celestial Champion being its strongest minion it can send down to defend itself from Wagstaff's machine and us. Winona seems to believe that Wagstaff might have planned to steal the energy from the champion since the beginning and WX seems to believe he isn't to be trusted, both of these characters having connections to him as Wagstaff was her boss back at the Voxola Factor and WX being an invention by Wagstaff himself.
 

Spoiler

WX = "YOU" , "DON'T TRUST HIM, SISTER. DON'T EVER TRUST HIM"
Winona = "There's the boss' Widget Deflubber!" , "Mr. Wagstaff... did you plan for this?"

What does this all mean? I have no clue! Wagstaff coming back into the spotlight certainly means something though. Had it not been for him the characters likely would've never ended up where they are now since he was the one who invented the Radio, Gramaphone and Maxwell seemingly based the Teleportatos off of his own designs, including the ones leading to the throne (this is a discussion for another time however).

What I do know however is this, Maxwell's given us some very key dialogue to piece everything together. Throughout this expansion Maxwell's made various comments related to Lunar stuff which implies the presence within them feels very familiar, but he shrugs off the possibility of what they could be. That is, until we defeat the Celestial Champion.
 

Spoiler

"This power, it feels like... but it couldn't be...",
"I don't know what to believe. All this time, I thought that They were...",

When this expansion started, I began to believe the moon was Them. Eventually I settled back on thinking that perhaps the shadow entity from beyond the ancient gateway is Them. But now this had me thinking, what if it's both and even more? What if Them refers to a collective of unknowable entities that exist within the world of Don't Starve? This sounds crazy at first but consider this, the moon's power has been increasing lately and it was once worshipped by the Ancients, similar the shadow entity. The shadow entity lies in a dimension beyond the Ancient Gateway. The only dimensions we can currently access through the Gateway would be the Forge and the Gorge. The Forge contains Pugna, who felt betrayed by the Throne and Them and was seemingly abandoned and exiled by Them. The Gorge contains the Gnaw, an immensely large mouth in the sky which has the ability to turn people into Merms if its endless appetite isnt satisfied. What if They were all sealed away and the gateway dimensions are where they were all primarily kept? What if Pugna's dimension was abandoned by the entity which once resided there, leaving Pugna and the Gnaw is another one of Them? It would explain why the gateway dimensions exist to begin with and account for the shadow entity. It would also explain Mumsy and Pugna referring to us as 'Gatekeepers'. During the course  of both events they would ask if we were Gatekeepers and refer to us as such.

Spoiler

Pugna: "They destroy all that They touch" "Why serve a power that deserted my people?" "We were severed from the Throne" "Gatekeepers? Have you come to return us to the Throne?"

Mumsy: "Are you...Gatekeepers, by chance?"

In the Metheus Puzzle we can see that one of the Ancients would control the Gateway to channel nightmare fuel from the shadow entity in another dimension. That Ancient could've been a gatekeeper, who has the authority to access these dimensions for various reasons such as seeking power or favor from Them.

Spoiler

Furthermore I initially thought that Metheus could be the queen of the ancients perhaps but given the focus on the shadow entity and our 'presence' being noticed by something when we complete it, along with the moon entity likely being called 'Alter' it could be that the shadow entity is in fact Metheus. This would mean that the Return of Them isn't just one entity like Metheus or Alter but infact, multiple entities, likely through the use of the Gateway or a newly constructed gateway. The Sealed Portal may be used in all of this. The characters including Maxwell and Wortox both allude to it being a way out of the constant and it may very well be but it could potentially have other uses as well. After all, we're not sure why the Ancients would build a portal that has access to Earth, but it's possible. It could also explain how the Codex Umbra ended up on Earth and in the hands of Maxwell, who knows. 

That's just my two cents on what this could all mean and what this is leading up to though. I've been wrong before and I'll likely be wrong again in the future so don't take what i say as gospel. I'm not sure if Charlie's plans have accounted for Wagstaff's interference or if Wagstaff and Charlie are potentially working together. We can theorise for now but for the time being we don't have enough evidence to assume where this is all going. Previously I believe that the Mysterious Energy would bring about some unknowable entity and we would fight them and Charlie would take it for her plans and that proved to be mostly right, save for it being Wagstaff instead of Charlie. Now we're left in the blind. All we know is that Wagstaff is on the move with extremely powerful celestial magic, Charlie is still on the move to finish her plans and They are going to return, and if my theory is right then when They return, it's going to be absolute chaos. Alot of people seem to think the story of Don't Starve Together is coming to a close but given all the build up we've had and what's to come, I think we're just getting started. But again, I could be wrong.

Thank you so much for reading all of this if you've read it until the end! I'm currently working on a document compiling all the lore for the game for everyone to enjoy. I need to modify it to accomodate for the new information from this beta and I have alot of schoolwork to take care of as well so I should have it out by the time the update is officially out! Give or take some time. That's all for now, see you around!

[Lucemodok]

Algaepack strikes again

[Grim the]

Wow Scypham, this is very extensive!

I always thought alter was some sort of intentional misspelling, I never thought it could be the- lunar metheus?

[VouMorrer]

that is a very good thread, thank you!

dont forget we still have the sealed portal, i doubt it will remain without purpose.

[LinknAllie]

I hope Wagstaff is after the throne now.  Since that means there is a possibility he's playable similar to what happened to Maxwell in the all's well that's Maxwell update. But I doubt that's the way KLEI is gonna take the story

[Scypham]

One thing I forgot to mention! After you defeat the Celestial Champion, the Celestial Orb also gets access to all the celestial crafting recipes and emits light when it's active (I believe the stations also get access to the orb's recipes but I could be wrong there). On top of that given how the Lunar Siphonator was build, it's likely that it was siphoning energy from both the Mysterious Energy as well as the Celestial Orb. Given that its prefab name is 'moonrockseed' and the fact the champion only came down when we added the Celestial Orb and completed the structure, if my theory about Alter is correct then it's possible that the Celestial Orb is a literal seed that has the potential to either become a vessel for Alter or become another weaker version of Alter entirely. But again, that's just a theory and I don't have much to support it. It just seems likely that it'll be used again sometime in the future as a result given the attention it garnered from the moon.

[Pcwer]

What if Wortox's mother is one of them? It's a stretch but we do know he arrived through the gateway.

[minespatch]

4 hours ago, Scypham said:

WX = "YOU" , "DON'T TRUST HIM, SISTER. DON'T EVER TRUST HIM"

???? Who's the sister? Winona?

[Rhovious Aran]

Thanks a lot for the post. I really enjoyed reading this. Testing all the new stuff today, I found myself a bit frustrated for how I felt not many of my questions were answered and I rather found myself with many more new questions. This beautiful post put my mind a bit at ease. Thanks <3

[DaZoul]

25 minutes ago, minespatch said:

???? Who's the sister? Winona?

I'm not sure, but I think WX is supposed to be talking to the machine Wagstaff is building. He calls other machines family, like the Science Machine Mother, but that's just my guess 

[Maximum124]

2 hours ago, DaZoul said:

I'm not sure, but I think WX is supposed to be talking to the machine Wagstaff is building. He calls other machines family, like the Science Machine Mother, but that's just my guess 

100% sure its the machine, what did you DO to WX wagstaff??

[Bluegeist]

Nice theories and also appreciating the series of events laid out here, it's hard to figure out what to do first lol :3

[oCrapaCreeper]

The question of "what is Them?" has always been seemingly up in the air. The only insight we have ever really gotten so far about Them is Maxwell's dialogue at the end of Adventure mode in the original singleplayer game:

Spoiler

 "Is this how it ends?"
"Forgive me if I don't get up."
"You've been an interesting plaything, but I've grown tired of this game."
"Or maybe They've grown tired of me."
"Heh. Took them long enough."
"They'll show you terrible, beautiful things."
"It's best not to fight it."
"There wasn't much here when I showed up."
"Just dust. And the Void. And Them."
"I've learned so much since then. I've built so much."
"But even a King is bound to the board."
"You can't change the rules of the game."
"I don't know what they want. They... they just watch."
"Unless you get too close... Then..."
"Well, there's a reason I stay so dapper."
"What year is it out there? Time moves differently here."
"Go on, stay a while. Keep us company."
"Or put the key in the box. It's your decision."
"Either way, you're just delaying the inevitable."
"Reality is like that, sometimes."
"I think I've said enough."

From what he said there, I've always thought Maxwell was trying to say that the shadow creatures were "them". He is not sure what They want, but They are watching him all the time, and he has to stay dapper because Them.

Maybe that's where Kevin tried to go many years ago when he wrote those strings? Doesn't seem to be the case anymore if so. Maxwell in the original singleplayer game still thinks that a lantern "will keep Them away" despite the name of the update arc in DST implying they were not in the constant already or are an active threat.

Maybe once the ruins lore from the Metheus puzzle was conceived, they had a better idea of where they wanted to take things? I doubt everything was planned out since 2013. Maxwell's conflicting information about what existed in the world when he first showed up is a thing too.

[Szczuku]

I'm sorry but this update's lore is quite ridiculous.

So you're telling me that the 'Moon', an eldritch being, sent down its most powerful minion and said minion can be defeated with a rock on a stick? Ancient Fuelweaver at least requires you to have a lot of equipment ready since he can mind control, shield and heal himself etc. Celestial Champion simply hits you with rocks and puts you to sleep. You just need a weapon and a walking cane. Yeah, what a great defensive mechanism. I'm sure that in-game a Bee Queen or Dfly can take the Champion down. 

And the ending of that fight- Wagstaff just materializes and... takes Champion's energy/power? I know that our survivors can store liquified nightmares in a chest but come one, Wagstaff just harvests lunar power with his bare hands.

Speaking of Wagstaff, with his hologram he can now just walk through time and space. What is this? You're telling me that Wagstaff now canonically has creative mode on? What's next, he'll just divide Charlie by zero and take over the throne?

And on the topic of the Gateway- Klei's yet to make a clear connection between gateway arc and RoT arc. We don't know if survivors arrived again in the Constant with Mumsy and Billy and that caused 'Moon' to drop a piece of itself down or if they arrived in some other dimension along the way.

[minespatch]

1 minute ago, Szczuku said:

And on the topic of the Gateway- Klei's yet to make a clear connection between gateway arc and RoT arc. We don't know if survivors arrived again in the Constant with Mumsy and Billy and that caused 'Moon' to drop a piece of itself down or if they arrived in some other dimension along the way.

We need bridging and those ornaments for the forge and Gorge aren't helping.

[Mysterious box]

21 hours ago, LinknAllie said:

I hope Wagstaff is after the throne now.  Since that means there is a possibility he's playable similar to what happened to Maxwell in the all's well that's Maxwell update. But I doubt that's the way KLEI is gonna take the story

I think wagstaff is more interested in stealing the powers of the shadow and light so I doubt he'd settle for the throne. He seems to have a large purpose in the story now so it's even more unlikely he'll be playable but you never know.

Edit: that being said I can't wait to see him and Charlie go at it.

[Maxposting]

Wagstaff gonna meddle around with lunar magic until "The ancient spirits of light and dark have been released"

[Cassielu]

I looked back at some old things. The final update on ANR called "Heart of the Ruins" , ending as Charlie take away the shadow atrium from fulewaver. This time we got "Eye of the storm" update, ending as wagstaff taking magic power from champion, we didn't know what is that but the eye on clock moon icon obvious disappear. I take it can be regarded as a sign that wagstaff has"taken the eye away". 

They are collecting something.

 

[RoseAppraiser]

Something to note about activating the Celestial Energy: The moon dial glasses over and has an eye design in it.

And the characters all have something to note about this, for example, Winona saying she can't help but feel someone's watching.
And another: Once the Champion is defeated, Wagstaff appears and steals what this Rose Appraiser will call the "Heart of the Moon."

Once he takes it, the entire world goes dark until the day cycle finishes. Once that happens, 2 distinct changes occur: 1) the moon cycle begins again, starting with a new moon; 2) The moon icon become glassy, and seems to have no known effect as of the current update. This Rose Appraiser theorizes that in Wagstaff stealing the Heart, the Moon and Constant are no longer in a balance of sorts.

[WebberMain]

I am really excited about all of this,but i still want to see the Shadow part of ROT update(if there ever be one).The Atrium lorewise needs a closure
IMO
Now to the lore.I can´t really decide if we have awaken the Moon,or enraged it.When it sends its champion,it is clearly enraged,but when we summon the mysterious energy,it clearly becomes more active,and i wonder why.Is the Mysterious energy a part from the Moon itself and we are reuniting them?What happened to the eye of the Moon?Why is it gone?Did the Moon being left the Moon,or is it just hiding,because it is weakened by us?
I really hope that from the moment the Moon goes dark(after defeating it´s champion) we will get an update focused on the shadow/ancient part once again.

[-Variant]

On 4/16/2021 at 11:45 AM, Scypham said:

'Alter' likely being the name of the lunar entity

Here's some more proof to back this up, I was doing a little snooping around and sure enough the giant eye in the sky is called Alter, via the Alterreveal anim name of said eye!

[Zeklo]

Saw this quote in another thread and thought I'd share:

3 hours ago, minespatch said:

That last screencap does imply the gnaw from the gorge.

  In reference to this:

It's a stretch, but it's certainly possible.

So that got me looking at the other things in the gateway before it breaks—

We obviously know the eye.

Good o' Shadow Entity.

So that got me thinking about this...

Odd huh? Well it may actually match something else on the mural—

Spoiler

One of the phases of the moon cycle.

(if we rotate it at least)

Big stretch, but fun to think about. Just thought that was an interesting possibility that aligns with what you got here.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

8 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

Saw this quote in another thread and thought I'd share:

  In reference to this:

It's a stretch, but it's certainly possible.

So that got me looking at the other things in the gateway before it breaks—

We obviously know the eye.

Good o' Shadow Entity.

So that got me thinking about this...

Odd huh? Well it may actually match something else on the mural—

  Hide contents

One of the phases of the moon cycle.

(if we rotate it at least)

Big stretch, but fun to think about. Just thought that was an interesting possibility that aligns with what you got here.

ancient herald has that symbol too

[Zeklo]

7 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

ancient herald has that symbol too

Good catch.

Was looking back at old stuff, and yeah the symbol literally means moon.
Man, I need to have this in an easier place to reference.

[WebberMain]

32 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

ancient herald has that symbol too

And ancient heralds AoE attack resembles the shadow eye too!